


I Will Not Ask & Neither Should You

by ladyofrosefire



Series: Like Real People Do [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, POV Character of Color, Past Torture, Reunions, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 11:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3766345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofrosefire/pseuds/ladyofrosefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months later, in the middle of yet another brewing altercation, Clarke returns to Camp Jaha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Not Ask & Neither Should You

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hozier's "Like Real People Do". 
> 
> This is barely a fix-it. Clarke's back and alive, but that's all I can offer.

 

Bellamy was starting to think that his tendency to expect the worst was the only thing keeping him sane, at this point. When it came to staying alive, he had help; Octavia, Miller, and Lincoln. But he couldn’t exactly call for backup when his mind started to tip toward chaos and confusion and memory.

His own words haunted him, from time to time, although less frequently than the nightmares did.

Chaos was useful when it was of his making and he had a grip on it. Chaos needed to be tempered and managed. Carefully. Too little, and it would be an annoyance. Too much, and it would be like sparks next to hydrazine.

The chaos at the Council table was neither well-managed nor useful.

He stood at one end of the uneven table the Council had appropriated to replace the one that had been completely destroyed when the Ark came to earth. To his left was David Miller. To his right was Lincoln. Kane, Abby, Sinclair, and a Councilwoman who was both irritatingly and blessedly neutral stood around the table. Its entire surface was covered with overlapping maps, and those were covered in turn with penciled in lines and symbols. No one at the table was calm enough to sit down.

Bellamy glared at the arguing Councilors and gritted his teeth so he would not simply tell them all to shut up. He was starting to get an ache in his jaw from doing that. It complimented the steady, insistent pounding in his temples.

 _She_ had always been the politician. He had been the one to strategize, to raise morale and keep the wheels of their plans running, even if he had to use blood to do it. And yes, there had always been politics involved in that, but it was one thing to manage a crowd of people and another entirely to try to make himself heard over a group of men and women so cemented in their idea of their own superiority that they could not be bothered to look down and see the rubble they stood on.

Without Lincoln, they’d be in even deeper trouble than they already were.

He and Miller were trying to quiet Abby and Kane, who were agreeing for once. It would have been a good thing if their plan were better. One solid tap and it would all crash down on them.

Bellamy sighed heavily and raised a hand to rub his forehead for a moment. It was times like this he regretted taking the Council seat Abby had offered to him. It had been such an obvious ploy it had nearly been insulting. They’d had to give the remaining Delinquents (because thinking of the actual number was too much right now) some representation in their government, and with Clarke gone, there was no one else. They listened to him. The Council, however, still needed convincing.

If Clarke were here, he would not be in this room. He’d be supporting her, providing advice. They would make their decisions, and then she would relay them to the people who still could not give him the respect he had more than earned.

But wishing for that was as useful as wishing for anything. He would sort this out without her.

“Miller, I respect your judgement--” Abby was saying in the exact tone that had so annoyed him when he’d first heard it from her daughter’s lips, “But we’ve been over the charts a dozen times--”

“And your tactics aren’t taking the terrain fully into account!” Miller shot back.

Bellamy took a heavy breath, set both hands on the table, and then jumped back into the fray. “Captain Miller is right. If you’d look here--”

Kane spoke over him. “We’ve looked at the terrain and this is the best option.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Which meant none, at this particular moment, “You haven’t looked hard enough.”

“Bellamy, I’ve been studying tactics for years--”

“Not tactics meant for guerrilla warfare on the _ground_!”

The Council meeting dissolved back into chaos, Bellamy trying to get people to shut up and let Lincoln explain what sort of strategies they would be up against, Kane trying to tell them they had already worked this out, and Abby insisting Bellamy was not an authority on this subject.

 

Silence dropped over the meeting like the blade of a guillotine.

Bellamy paused for a moment, and then sighed. He leaned forward, both hands on the map covered table, and fixed his eyes on the charts. “ _Thank you_. Alright-- so if you’ll look at this ridge--”

“Bellamy.”

He looked up at Captain Miller, an eyebrow arched, expression expectant.

“You might want to…” He trailed off, gaze slipping over Bellamy’s shoulder to the door.

           

“Bellamy.”

           

He had not heard _that_ voice, when awake, in months. Slowly, he turned, numb with shock. His eyes went wide as they fell on Clarke. She stood in the doorway, dressed like a grounder, her hair braided out of her face and coated in dust. Her face, too, was streaked with it, and a fading bruise shadowed one cheek. But otherwise she appeared to be unhurt.

Bellamy’s mouth opened, shaped her name soundlessly, and then snapped shut again hard enough that his teeth hurt.

For a few long moments, they only stood there, staring at each other. Then he he found himself across the room, close enough to Clarke to smell sweat and leather and dust. It was only when he had his arms wrapped around her tightly enough that he drove the air from her lungs that he got his voice back.

“ _Clarke._ ” He brought a hand up, cradling the back of her head while his other hand remained splayed over the middle of her back. Bellamy looked up, blinking a little too hard, and sucked in a breath. “God--”

 _You’re safe_ , he thought. _You’re back_.

And then, “I missed you.” He mumbled the words into her hair, making them nearly unintelligible.

Again and again, Bellamy said it, as if he could take those months and push them out of reality that way. He was dimly aware of Clarke’s arms wrapping around him, returning the embrace with equal force, and dampness at the collar of his shirt. Her shoulders were shaking. Bellamy swallowed hard, his own throat tight. He could wait for a little while for that, just until he had a little privacy.

 

A quiet cough snapped them out of their illusion of isolation. Bellamy looked back toward the Council table, and then slowly released Clarke. She lingered a moment longer, hands on his shoulders, before stepping back and dragging a hand beneath her eyes. It left a streak of dust like war paint in its wake.

“Mom…” She pressed her lips into a thin line, looked down, and then glanced at Abby.

For a few moments, neither woman moved. Then Abby stepped forward. Clarke stepped back.

“I’m sorry.” She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, fingers curling against the leather of her coat. “I’m-- I came back because I heard there was trouble.”

“There is.” Kane replied.

Bellamy looked at him for a moment, gauging, and then nodded to him gratefully. They had work to do, and Clarke didn’t need to be smothered.

“I’d like a moment with my daughter.” Abby protested.

Maybe at another time, Bellamy would understand. He knew how he’d felt being reunited with Octavia, and Clarke was Abby’s daughter, for God’s sake. But Abby did not understand what her daughter had become since coming to the ground.

Bellamy set a hand on Clarke’s shoulder to steady her, and then led her to the table. “Later.” He told Abby, tone leaving no room for argument. If she decided to cause him trouble because of that, it wouldn’t be anything new. “Clarke.” He continued. “You’ve got information? Let’s hear it.”

 

* * *

 

That afternoon he had been so happy-- No. Not happy. Relieved. He had been so relieved to see that Clarke was _alright_ that he had forgotten everything else. Now, sitting in the cabin he’d been assigned-- being on the Council had its perks-- it had all come rushing back.

The loneliness, the helplessness when he saw Monty plagued with the same nightmares that filled his sleep. The nightmares themselves.

He had told no one about what had happened to him in Mount Weather. Lincoln knew, or had guessed, but they never spoke of it. Octavia did not know, of that he was certain. And he would be keeping it that way. Clarke had not known what she was leaving him to deal with, of course, but he couldn’t help but wonder how much she had suspected. She had run for the woods with a grieving and wounded camp behind her and him too shaken to be the leader it needed, and patch himself up. But Clarke had asked him to take care of them, and there had not really been another choice, so he had done it.

He did not want to see what sleep had in store for him that night. Bellamy yanked his door open, thinking he would go and find Raven, or Miller, and stopped dead in the doorway. He’d been doing that a lot today.

And of course Clarke was there. She’d always been the type to talk these things out with him, and always when there was very little he could do about it. Resentment was an ugly emotion, but he let himself indulge in it for a couple moments.

“Yes?”

Clarke couldn’t seem to make herself look at him. “I thought you might want to t--”

“To talk. Of course.” Bellamy sighed and stepped out of her way. He never had been able to make her do anything, much less leave. “Come in.”

If only he’d been able to convince her to stay.

But no, he understood why she had left. He had been tempted to follow her.

 

Clarke stepped over the threshold and looked around the cabin, fiddling with one of the straps on her coat. “Nice place.”

Bellamy let out a huff of air. “Should be. Took long enough to build.” He closed the door behind her. “What did you want to talk about?”

With the sounds of the camp cut off, or at least muffled, it was too quiet in the cabin. None of them in the camp are used to the quiet, not really. It was a different type of quiet than that on the Ark. When the cabin door was open, he could hear night sounds, footsteps, the crackle of fires, conversation.

He could hear none of those things, now.

Bellamy took a deep, slow breath and heard Clarke do the same. Then her hand settled on his shoulder.

“Bel--”

He turned. “What? What do you want me to say? I-- I already forgave you.” He caught her hands in his and squeezed. “I’m not gonna take that back just ‘cause I’m pissed that you left.”

Clarke flinched and guilt threatened to choke him.

“I’m not mad at you anymore, alright? I got over that. I just-- I didn’t really get used to not having you here.”

“I’m sorry…” She sighed.

“Don’t-- you don’t have to be. You said you wanted to talk.”

           

For a few long moments, there was only silence. Then Bellamy cleared his throat. “Are you going to leave again?”

“I think I might.” Clarke admitted. “I don’t know. I don’t… I don’t want to, Bellamy, you know that. But nothing’s changed.”

He shook his head. “They know, Clarke. They know what we did and they don’t-- it’s not that they don’t _care_ , but they don’t blame us. They don’t blame you.”

 

For a while, they only stared at each other silently, trying to find words to put to all the things filling the air between them.

“How are you?” Clarke asked finally.

It was so inadequate a question that Bellamy had to stop himself from laughing. It would have been a humorless sound, brittle and tired as he felt. Instead, he shrugged, raised a hand to chest height, and tipped it from side to side a few times.

“Pretty much how you’d expect.” He sighed and moved past Clarke to sit down on his bed.

“You look tired.”

He snorted, his gaze fixed on his hands. “I’m fine.”

“Bellamy--”

“Clarke.” He looked up at her, gaze and tone both sharper than he had meant them to be. “Just drop it, alright? I’m dealing with it.”

She inhaled slowly and carefully. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible. “Dealing with what?”

Bellamy let out a long, shuddering breath and dropped his head into his hands. he scrubbed at his face, calluses rasping against stubble, and then raked both hands back through his hair. “What do you think, Clarke?”

She looked down, mouth pulled tight, guilt shadowing her eyes. He couldn’t have that.

“I chose to go in there, remember? I knew the risks. Now I’ve got to deal with it.”

“We didn’t know we were going to have to--” She couldn’t say it.

Bellamy did not try to make her. Because she was wrong. Yes, the faces of their victims plagued him, but they were not what filled his nightmares. Octavia would have died. He would have died.

His silence seemed to be all that Clarke needed in order to understand, though. She settled beside him, slowly, cautiously, and met his eyes. “Bellamy… what happened?”

He held her gaze for a little while longer before looking down at his hands again. “They took my blood.”

Bellamy did not tell her the rest-- the water and the powder, the cage, the feeling of blood rushing to his head, and the conviction that he was going to die under the ground, away from his sister, and that his death would doom everyone he cared for because the acid fog would still be active. He did not need to tell her. Clarke had seen the room when she rescued Anya.

Her arms circled him, pulled him in, and guided his head to her shoulder. He let her move him, wrapping an arm around her waist. One of Clarke’s hands made its way to his hair, fingers carding through it slowly. She hummed softly, some little tune he had not heard before, but nonetheless reminded him of that day in the woods. He had saved Clarke from facing Atom’s fate, but that meant nothing when he woke convinced his own skin was burning.

It was slow work chasing away the memories, but Clarke seemed to have a talent for it. His shoulders fell as tension left them a little at a time, and his breathing became steadier. Clarke let her song taper off into silence, and the sound of their breathing, more or less in sync, filled the cabin.

 

“You could have asked me to stay.” She whispered finally.

Bellamy lifted his head enough to meet her eyes. “I did.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at ask-ladyofrosefire.tumblr.com


End file.
